Good Morning
by Aisu The Spiffy
Summary: Sometimes it's easier to forget, but sometimes it's impossible. Subaru oneshot, SS vaugley implied.


A/N: This one feels a bit off to me, but I like it enough to post it. The idea hit me at 10:00 PM, which probably doesn't help my writing. Still, please R/R, and be as harsh as you want

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With each day that went by he remembered her less.

She had always been vauge ever since she had died. A memory of a face he used to wear and no longer wanted to see, nothing more. Not a person. Her fashions and eccentricities had all been lost, replaced only with a few shreds of memory - a conversation, a dream, a violent death.

It had gotten worse with every passing year. Increasingly she lost relevance as a sister - a twin - and became something else. An excuse, really. A way to justify spending so much time hunting him down, because if his grandmother knew she'd never allow it. And it helped to justify it to himself too, he had to admit.

Eventually he looked in the mirror and couldn't remember what he had looked like, what she had been. He had to dig up an old photo and spend a long minute remembering her face, her name, who she was. And even with that, it was hard to hold the memories down when the other man was in the picture too and his eye was constantly drawn to the Sakurazukamori instead of his sister.

Finally, one morning, he forgot to greet the mirror as he left. And he didn't even notice that he had done it.

It was weeks after he forgot that the Sakurazukamori looked up at him and smiled, sweat beading his face, blood flowing everywhere, and quietly remarked that it was because of her.

And suddenly her brother remembered every detail of the girl in perfect clarity. Every strange outfit, every smile as she teased him about marriage, every time she remarked on the boy's blindness to his own heart - all of it came back in an instant.

He remembered Hokuto, and he hated her.

She had taken Seishirou from him. She had never understood him, despite what she claimed. She thought he would die if Seishirou betrayed him but instead he had lived, tortured, trapped, and she had made certain not even the man Subaru had chased could give him respite. He had only wanted death and now it was taken from him and it was all her fault and he'd never forgive her.

After Kamui helped him, she started trying to talk to him, mirrors coming to life and worrying about him and fussing over every detail, but Subaru broke the mirrors and she couldn't come back there any more. So she started whispering instead, telling him that this was for the best and that he needed to live, but he screamed until he couldn't hear her over the yell and she gave up there too. A million different methods were thwarted one by one and he wouldn't listen to her because it was all because of her.

But he couldn't forget any more. Forgetting had been calm. It had let him focus on what was truly important. And now he couldn't forget anything about her, no matter how insignifigant, and he was scared she'd flood his mind and take his memories of Seishirou as she moved to replace them.

So he wrote Seishirou on all his things but sometimes it'd turn into Hokuto and he'd have to stare at himself in the pond (the one mirror he had kept) until the green eye seemed to ripple away and he could just see Seishirou for a while. But she'd start trying to fill his mind again and he'd have to find a new way to drown her out, exclude her, because he wouldn't let her be important. Not like Seishirou was important.

He threw away the photos with her in it but Seishirou was in them too and so he rescued them from the garbage, staring at the stained images. Hokuto was always too clear but he didn't know how to cut her out. She was part of it, and he hated that and shoved the photos where he couldn't see them any more, looking at the ones with only Seishirou instead.

He hated that there was something to him that wasn't Seishirou's. He hated that she had saved him, cared for him, loved him. He hated having loved her even as a sister, because he should've only cared for Seishirou. He wished she'd just die again, but they were always together and he didn't know how to deal with it any more.

Eventually he want to the pond and stared in for a long moment. There it was - a femine face, framed by short bangs, with at least one beautiful, heartbreaking green eye.

"Good morning, nee-san."

He had given in.


End file.
